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Parents with kids in college

You've got a kid in college. They've got loans so you're not out of pocket. They're under 24 so you can still claim them on your taxes along with getting a credit for the tuition that gets paid. Your kid is working a part time job and made $12k. You're doing taxes for both yourself and your kid.

You finish your return and you're getting a $3k refund. You do your kids return and they owe $10.

Since you're a good parent you decide to see how things work out if you let your kid claim himself. Under that scenario he gets a $2800 refund but without claiming him you owe $10.

Ultimately things work out better all the way around if you claim him. Do you claim him? Do you tell him he'd have received a $2800 refund if he claimed himself?

Re: Parents with kids in college

Depends on how financially sound you are and what kind of student your kid is.

I happen to have a son in last year of college with a microbiology degree. He is not one of the wild college kids partying on weekends. His major is a tough one and he works hard. He doesn't work during the school year and will work in summers.
We plan for him to graduate without one college loan hanging over his head. Myself I would give the refund to him.

I know there are people who say this would be spoiling him paying the whole education but that is my choice. If he was flunking out of school and drunk nitely I might feel differently.

Now , ask me how I feel about college atheletes who get a 4 year free pass.

Re: Parents with kids in college

I am going to assume that he is still dependent on me for basic necessities, and is still living at home.

I would expect my college-age kid to be cognizant enough about our taxation system to get informed regarding his own tax liability situation, and how it effects him personally. That being said, if he does not bother to do so, then I would consider that his loss, due to his own negligence, and I would claim him on my taxes.

"God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my path violently and recklessly, all things which alter my plans and intentions, and change the course of my life, for better or for worse."-C G Jung

Re: Parents with kids in college

Originally Posted by Lutherf

You've got a kid in college. They've got loans so you're not out of pocket. They're under 24 so you can still claim them on your taxes along with getting a credit for the tuition that gets paid. Your kid is working a part time job and made $12k. You're doing taxes for both yourself and your kid.

You finish your return and you're getting a $3k refund. You do your kids return and they owe $10.

Since you're a good parent you decide to see how things work out if you let your kid claim himself. Under that scenario he gets a $2800 refund but without claiming him you owe $10.

Ultimately things work out better all the way around if you claim him. Do you claim him? Do you tell him he'd have received a $2800 refund if he claimed himself?

If I am not paying for anything and he is supporting himself I would let him claim himself.If I am paying for his rent, bills and other **** then I wouldn't say anything and claim him.

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear"

Re: Parents with kids in college

Originally Posted by Crosscheck

Depends on how financially sound you are and what kind of student your kid is.

I happen to have a son in last year of college with a microbiology degree. He is not one of the wild college kids partying on weekends. His major is a tough one and he works hard. He doesn't work during the school year and will work in summers.
We plan for him to graduate without one college loan hanging over his head. Myself I would give the refund to him.

I know there are people who say this would be spoiling him paying the whole education but that is my choice. If he was flunking out of school and drunk nitely I might feel differently.

Now , ask me how I feel about college atheletes who get a 4 year free pass.

Interesting you mention that. A few years back I had a client whose kid got a football scholarship to Notre Dame. After the first year he decided that he hated football but liked Notre Dame. That was a mighty expensive year!